BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Sophomore Patrick Begley continued a strong 2015 season, taking 58th overall, to lead the UConn men's cross country team to a 12th-place finish in the Men's 8K Gold Race at the 42nd annual Paul Short Run on Friday afternoon at Goodman Campus Cross Country Course.

UConn finished the competition, which was hosted by Lehigh, with 347 total team points, topping competition from American Athletic Conference foes Temple, Tulane and East Carolina. No. 14 Georgetown took the crown with a meet-best 37 points, while seventh-ranked Villanova placed second overall. As a team, the Huskies recorded a 25:13 average finish time in the 8K race.

Begley was the first Husky to cross the finish line, notching a 25:05 time, followed closely by freshman standout PJ Garmon (25:07), who took 60th. Sophomore tri-captain Michael O'Donnell finished 67th (25:12), while Aidan Fiol (25:13), Kyle Barber (25:25), and Kyle Brackman (25:29) all grabbed top-100 results. Sophomore Parker Timmerman placed 102nd with a 25:31 time to round out the team's top-seven finishers.

"Simply put, we're infinitely better than we were a season ago," said head coach Greg Roy. "I'm pleased with the effort of our guys. For Barber and Garmon, this was the first collegiate 5-mile race they have competed in and they both did well. Our guys are going into races with an aggressive mindset to try and win. We've got a big week of training ahead of us."

In 2014,the Huskies checked in at No. 38 in the Men's Gold 8K race with 990 total points, headlined by a 156th-place finish by Timmerman (25:41). This season, eight Huskies placed in the top-156 and the spread between the squad's first and seventh-place finishers was just 26 seconds.

This season, the Gold Race featured two of the nation's top-15 teams in Villanova (No. 7) and Georgetown (No. 14) and also included conference foes East Carolina, Tulane and Temple. Additionally, Canisius (No. 8) and Binghamton (No. 14) represented top competition from the USTFCCCA Northeast Region.